From an E-mail I recieved this morning

from the

"Daily Reconing"

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Issues/2007/DR052907.html

We have our thinking caps on today...after a three-day holiday in which we

were given plenty of time for it. You see, over this long Memorial Day

weekend we had to ignore the financial news - since there wasn't too much

of it - and we actually gave ourselves over to cogitation. Now we find we

can't stop ourselves. The thing has become addictive.

Actually, thinking is usually the hardest thing for any man to do. Most

men will do practically anything to avoid it - even die. And that is true

in matters not just in finance. We, however, will make do with the little

news we can find, even if we have to fish it out of the past.

Yesterday, for instance, we talked about a nation's idea of itself...its

history...its dominant 'narrative.' People need simple answers to

questions such as, 'who are we?' and, 'what are we doing here?' They need

answers that give themselves a sense of purpose...or at least an

explanation that is so plausible that it saves them the trouble of

thinking.

For one thing, people don't like to die in pointless, absurd battles. They

much prefer to die for a reason - so they look for one anywhere they can.

In France, they died to realize the dream of a united, centralized

republican France; American martyrs fell, on the other hand, to preserve

their freedom and independence...or try to extend these blessings to other

parts of the planet. Of course, there are a lot of people who think France

would be a better place if it weren't quite so French. And there are

plenty of others who would prefer that U.S. troops mind their business at

home.

An individual soldier who bothered to think about his own situation might

decide that, say Napoleon's campaign against Tsar Alexander I of Russia,

or Wilson's campaign against Porfirio Diaz of Mexico, was not really worth

dying for.

But a soldier who thinks is not merely extremely rare - he is a danger to

the whole system! Fortunately, very few are capable of it. And the rest of

us loathe it so vigorously, we will accept any narrative at all in its

stead...provided it flatters our self-importance enough.

Napoleon drove the Grande Armee into Russia by telling the soldiers that

the Russians posed a grave risk to France's Eastern Flank. French

aristocrats - driven out and disposed during the revolution - had the ear

of the Romanovs and the Hapsburgs; they were always stirring up plots

against La Patrie. "If we don't fight them in Moscow," Bonaparte might

have said, "we will soon face them in Strasbourg. It's up to us to save

our civilization."

This kind of flattering threat is a perennial favorite. And so the

caissons roll...the drums beat...and the martyrs fall. 'Mort pour la

France,' say the French monuments. They died 'serving their country,' say

the American stones.

We spent much of Memorial Day sitting on a train in the middle of nowhere.

The train had broken down on the tracks, in the middle of a huge field of

wheat, between Montmorillon and Poitiers. Waiting for a bus to come to our

rescue, we picked up a copy of a book about French soldiers who fought for

Germany in WWII. Why would a Frenchman fight for the Nazis? They seem to

have chosen the wrong narrative.

Many Europeans, in the 1930s, saw Bolshevism as public enemy number one.

The Bolsheviks were godless, lawless barbarians, they thought. They had

already taken over Russia...and nearly grabbed Spain too. If they weren't

stopped, all of Europe would fall under the hammer...or be cut down by the

sickle. In this reading of things, Germany was not a threat to France or

Britain. Instead, it was a bulwark against the commies...and the only

nation with the vigor and strength to stand up to them. Many Frenchmen saw

the defeat of their forces by the Wehrmacht as a happy historical

necessity; now they were allied with the Germans in the fight that really

mattered, the battle against Bolshevism.

The Nazis put up recruiting posters in French: "Europe United Against

Bolshevism." Sensing an opportunity, thousands of Frenchmen signed up for

the Legion of French Volunteers, LVF, and were sent to the Eastern Front.

A later poster shows a picture of a French soldier dressed in a

snow-camouflage white uniform, carrying a machine gun. "During Three

Winters: The LVF covered itself with glory...for France and for Europe."

After three winters, hunkered down in snow-swept 'hedge-hog' formations,

you'd think the French would have time to think...time to question the

narrative that had gotten them into such a tight spot:

"What are we doing here," they might have asked themselves. But it was

easier to die than to think. Besides, at that point, dying was the odds-on

favorite. What good was thinking? The war was going badly. The Germans

were falling back across the Oder...with the Russkies in hot pursuit. And

if they made it back to France, their countrymen would call them

traitors.

No, it was easier, and maybe better, to die.

That fourth winter was the hardest one, the one when most of them stopped

moving. The LVF was incorporated into the Waffen SS and covered the

Germans' retreat, often, without suitable weapons or food. Their job was

to hold back the Russian tanks so that the Wehrmacht and the civilians of

Pomerania could make their way to the West. They fought...and then they

retreated too, with the long columns of Prussian women, children and old

men...beaten soldiers...deserters...lost...wounded.

The civilians, too, might have wondered about their own narrative. They

had been told that the German army could stop the Russian advance at the

border. They had been told that the Russian tanks were still hundreds of

miles away...and in retreat! And then, suddenly, there were thousands of

T-34 tanks and Red Army soldiers - who showed no mercy to anyone - on the

hallowed soil of Prussia. It was unthinkable...but it was real.

And now Germany needed real heroes...real soldiers...real men to push back

the Slav hordes. For centuries Prussia had nurtured a stern military

tradition of the threat from the East. And now, here it was - thousands of

Russia's bloodthirsty Siberian troops...burning their houses and raping

their women. And where was the German army when they needed it? It had

been battered and broken on a fool's errand in Russia. Now, the Russians

were having their revenge...and there were no troops to stop them.

Still, the Legion of French Volunteers fought on as best it could -

retreating, fighting, retreating, fighting - right to the gates of Berlin,

where they were among its last defenders.

Of those who survived the war, many went into Russian POW camps. Few came

out alive. And those that made it back to France found that they had been

officially dishonored and ostracized. They found no respect...and no jobs;

what could they do but become financial journalists?